Mindset of the Olympic Weightlifter

Carol Dweck is a distinguished professor and well-published researcher in Psychology who has taught at the universities of Columbia, Harvard, Illinois and Stanford where she is still a member of faculty. In 2006 Dweck published an influential book entitled Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Dweck theorised a continuum between believing that one’s abilities are innate and believing that one’s abilities are based on hard work and learning. According to Dweck, if a person believes that their potential is governed by innate factors then they have a “fixed mindset”. Whereas, if a person believes their potential is governed by their individual effort and learning, then they have a “growth mindset”. Importantly, Dweck’s view was that people who are high-achievers have a Growth Mindset.

Mindset of the Olympic Weightlifter

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Component	Fixed Mindset	Growth Mindset
Ultimate Potential	The athlete’s ultimate potential is dictated by genetics	The athlete’s ultimate potential is dictated to some degree by genetics and but mostly by what they can learn about the training process.
	Believing that the limit of your potential is already written in stone.	Believing that the limit of your potential depends on factors you can control
	Basing your belief about what you can achieve by what others have achieved before you in the same environment. The same factors that controlled them, also control you.	Believing that there is no reason why you cannot improve beyond what others have done before you in the same environment provided you can learn more
Training Effort	The struggle experienced in training is a problem, find a solution to fix it	The struggle experienced in training is a part of life, embrace it, it has value
Training Effort	Obstacles to increased training, lead to self-doubt and lowered expectations	Obstacles to increased training, lead to increased efforts to find solutions
Learning	The athlete believes the coach is responsible for determining the learning process	The athlete takes responsibility for the own learning process.
Technique	The athlete views errors of technique as evidence of a probable ongoing problem.	The athlete views errors of technique as a necessary part of learning success
	The athlete tends to think about their skill level in terms of some things they do well and some things they don’t do well.	The athlete tends to think about their skill level as a work-in-progress and all aspects can be improved
	The athlete thinks that their technical ability is limited by learning situations that have already taken place	The athlete thinks that their technical ability is limited by learning situations that are yet to occur
Success	The athlete views success as being the best athlete (weightlifter)	The athlete views success as achieving mastery of being an athlete (weightlifter)
Goals	The athlete sets goals related to performance	The athlete sets goals related to process
Competition Performance	Lower than expected results in competition tend to diminish motivation in training	Lower than expected results in competition tend to increase motivation in training
Physical Prowess	The athlete attributes their physical prowess to immutable genetic factors	The athlete attributes their physical prowess to the training process they have followed
“Coachability”	The athlete is more interested in feedback on how their technique “looks”	The athlete is more interested in feedback on how to improve their technique
Drugs in Sport	The athlete attributes outstanding results to outstanding pharmacology	The athlete attributes outstanding results to outstanding individuals